


Shiver

by narcissablaxk



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Early 2000s LawRusso, East Coast AU, Ghosts, Gore, Halloween, Horror, M/M, Possession, Spooky, Timeline is fuzzy, ghost story, haunted house au, i think, lawrusso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: When Daniel moves to Newton, New Jersey after leaving his fiancee at the altar, he wanted nothing more than to find a house he could fix up while figuring his life out. But there's something wrong with this house, with the things inside the house. Something whispers to him in the middle of the night - and it's telling him to feed.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 32
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a possession story, so if that's something that grosses you out, don't read! I figured we needed some horror for Halloween, so here I am!

Daniel always wished that he could return to the East Coast. Spending the tail end of his adolescence in California was a necessity, not a gift, and the longer he spent there, the more he realized that he didn’t really belong on the West Coast after all. He longed for winters, for falls, for beaches that were bathed in stillness and cold. 

When he realized, on the night before his wedding, that he was making a monumental mistake, the East Coast called his name once again. So, he packed his car full of his belongings, his mother chattering away in his ear while he worked, and drove across the country by himself. His mother wanted to come with him, but it would have been several days on the road, with her incessant questions and insistence that he think again about marrying Amanda, and he knew their temporarily fragile relationship couldn’t handle it. 

So here he was, pulling up to a dark green house in Newton, New Jersey, leaning out the window to look at the crumbling siding, the empty tree in the front yard. This place was going to be a fixer-upper, at least that’s how the realtor described it on the phone. But that was just what he wanted – something he could focus on while he forgot about everything he left on the West Coast. 

Even thinking about her now, with their wedding in shambles and deposits being sent back to their separate bank accounts, Daniel missed Amanda. He missed her steadfastness; he missed the blunt way she stopped his mind when it tried to spiral out of control. She was a rock, and he was shifting water. 

But he couldn’t marry her. He loved her, in the same way that he loved Jessica Andrews when he was only eighteen, but neither of those instances had been romantic love. He loved the idea of being with someone who handled him, who didn’t let him walk right off the deep end the moment things looked difficult. 

He could be that person for himself, he thought bracingly as he got out of the car, opening his phone to see the text message from the realtor, detailing where the house key would be. 

He found it under the mat, where she left it, and unlocked the front door. 

On the other side, he found a blond man in a sleeveless shirt sweeping cobwebs off the underside of the staircase, long hair barely brushing his shoulders. At the creak of the door, he looked up, blowing a gust of air from his mouth to keep his hair from falling over his sweaty forehead. 

“You must be the tenant,” he said, stepping forward and pulling off a work glove to offer Daniel a hand. “I was hoping to be done cleaning this before you got here.” 

“Daniel LaRusso,” he said, stifling a grimace at the man’s firm handshake. 

“Johnny Lawrence,” he said, slipping the glove back on the moment the handshake was finished. “Anyway, I was supposed to be gone by the time you got here, but this house, man. There’s always something new to do, you know?” 

“I don’t,” Daniel said with a shrug, looking around for the first time. Johnny watched him do it, brow wrinkled. “I’ve never been here.” 

“You bought this place without looking at it?” Johnny asked incredulously. “Okay, who did you murder?” 

Daniel snapped his gaze back to him. “Wh – excuse me?” 

“People don’t just buy houses without seeing them,” Johnny pointed out. “So obviously you murdered someone and are now on the run from the law.” 

“You watch a lot of movies, don’t you,” Daniel asked, not answering the question. He was looking up at the light fixtures, a little rusted but still intact. 

“Nothing much else to do in Newton, LaRusso,” Johnny said nonchalantly. “So…” 

“So…?” Daniel asked. 

“Who did you kill?” 

Daniel walked away from him, toward the staircase. The railing looked a little rickety to his eye. “No one’s dead,” he said, halfway under his breath.

“So you’re running from something.” 

“Do you give all new tenants the third degree?” he asked, turning away from the railing to face Johnny, who was watching him unabashedly, leaning on his broom. 

“Just the interesting ones,” Johnny said with a smirk, turning away to brush another stray cobweb down. 

Daniel shrugged, watching him work. “Nothing interesting here, unfortunately,” he said. He looked up at the top of the stairs, in time to see a wisp of white at the edge of the door. He squinted at it. Must be another cobweb. 

“Sure,” Johnny said like he didn’t believe him. “Either way, I’ll be back here for the next few days, just getting the house prepped for you to move in. You were…supposed to be here on Friday.” 

“Drove through the night,” Daniel said. It was hard to sleep when everyone kept calling his cell phone, asking what he wanted to do about the honeymoon fund, or the caterer, or the decorator, or even the cake, which was already made. 

“Because you murdered someone,” Johnny finished, snickering with his back to Daniel, now sweeping the cobwebs into a neat little pile, as if the rest of the house wasn’t still covered in a thin layer of grime that looked permanent. 

“Because I left my fiancée the night before our wedding,” Daniel replied, relishing in the way Johnny’s sweeping stopped. He deserved to be dramatic, if only with the pushy handyman. 

“Shit, man, that might be worse than killing someone.” 

He let out a surprised laugh. “What – how?” 

“I mean, if you killed someone, I assume you wouldn’t feel super guilty about it,” Johnny explained. “Especially if you had the presence of mind to buy a house in the middle of nowhere New Jersey.” 

“You’re strange,” Daniel said flatly, pushing on the railing that he’d been attempting to inspect for too long now. The railing creaked and cracked before snapping almost cleanly in two, the bits of splintered wood scattering over the floor that Johnny had just swept. 

“I can fix that,” Johnny said after a long moment of silence. 

***

There was a lot around the house that Johnny needed to fix, apparently. He made a list and passed it over to Daniel before he left, but Daniel couldn’t read his handwriting, so he just nodded and put the list in his pocket. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow around noon,” Johnny promised, thrusting his thumbs into the loop on his work belt. “I have a couple of little jobs around town. Try not to fall down the stairs while I’m gone.” 

“You know, I’ve somehow managed to go up and down stairs for almost thirty-five years of my life,” Daniel pointed out. “I think I’ll survive.” 

“Okay, princess,” Johnny laughed, shutting the door behind him. 

Daniel was left staring at the front door, trying to decide how he felt about the nickname ‘princess.’ As far as degrading nicknames went, it was pretty lackluster, but it didn’t feel like Johnny was making fun of him. And then his eyes swept over the dirty floor, the few boxes from his car he’d managed to carry in, and the thought was carried away by a growing to-do list. 

By the time he went to sleep (on a little collapsible cot he’d shoved into the back of his SUV), it was past two in the morning, and he didn’t feel like he’d accomplished anything at all. His mind was racing, full of static and extra white noise, and it took him a long time to fall asleep. 

He dreamed of fog, and a cold hand on his back. He was walking through a forest of thin trees, empty for the winter, the ground covered in their leaves. He was barefoot, he could feel the chill slipping between his bones, so cold his teeth were chattering. He tried to wrap his arms around himself, but his hands were so cold they felt like someone else’s. 

Through the sounds of his teeth chattering and his loud breath, he heard someone whisper. 

He stopped walking, the rustling of the leaves continuing in spite of his stillness, and felt goosebumps rise on his back. He felt the weight of a foreign gaze, boring into his back – the eyes of a predator. 

He turned, so sharply he almost knocked himself over, and saw nothing but the fog swirling, like displaced water. But still, the whisper persisted. He listened, hard, to try to decipher the words, but the harder he listened, the louder the voices and the more unintelligible the words. But he could hear the restrained anger, bitten behind teeth, borne on the volume of sound alone. 

He woke to the sound of an eighteen-wheeler blazing by, diesel engine loud in the early morning, and felt the whisper still. 

It was cold in the house, colder than he ever remembered being in California. For a moment, he was pleased – this is what he craved, wasn’t it, while he was sitting on his porch in shorts in November, sipping iced tea. He wanted cold, he wanted the seasons, shown in stark relief. 

He wrapped his blanket tight around his body (it still smelled of Encino, California, of the detergent Amanda bought), and went hunting for the thermostat. It was covered in such a thick layer of dust he had to scrape away at it with his fingernail, grimacing at the sound it made. 

It was 47 degrees in the house. Too damn cold. 

He cranked up the heat and listened for the telltale rattle. When it kicked on, and he could smell burning dust from the ducts, he considered his job done and went to make himself a cup of instant coffee. 

Johnny was true to his word and knocked loudly on the front door at 11:59. He was in what looked like the same jeans as the day before, with a buttoned-up flannel shirt. He wasn’t wearing a jacket. 

He smirked, his eyes taking in the sight of Daniel, still wrapped in the blanket. “Cold, California boy?” he asked. 

“I turned that heater on hours ago,” Daniel defended weakly. “It’s still not warm in here.” 

Johnny looked up at the high ceiling. “That’s the downside to some of these old houses,” he said. “High ceilings and lots of draft.” His eyes came back to land on Daniel, who loosened his hold on the blanket under the scrutiny. “I’m going to try to get that railing fixed,” he said. “Wanna help?” He eyeballed Daniel’s blanket again. “I think you can handle passing me tools.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “But I draw the line at bringing you lemonade.” 

“Coffee will do, toots,” Johnny joked, pulling a tape measure out of his belt. 

Daniel glared at him, but felt a smile coming on. “Do you actually…want a coffee?” 

Johnny turned to look at him over his shoulder. “You gonna make it for me?” 

Daniel shrugged. “I make a mean instant black coffee.” 

Johnny wrinkled his nose. “Delightful,” he said, turning back to his tape measure. Daniel left him to his work, grateful to be away from his weirdly perceptive gaze. He spooned the coffee crystals into the chipped mug, letting the coffee warm his hands before he ventured back into the entry. He left the blanket behind in the kitchen, determined to get used to the cold, to appreciate it.

There was something charming about Johnny that Daniel didn’t understand. Maybe it was the way he spoke, like they’d been friends for years already. Daniel was used to awkward small talk, businessmen who thrived on their people skills that were really only intimidating suits with receding hairlines. He wasn’t used to talking to a person who seemed genuine. 

“Here,” he passed the cup over to Johnny, who turned around to take it. 

“Holy shit, man, what happened to you?” Johnny asked, eyes on Daniel’s arms. 

At first, Daniel thought it was a joke – just another weird comment from the man fixing a broken staircase railing. But Johnny looked genuinely concerned, and when he looked down, he saw what had caught his attention. 

Bruises – dark purple, painful looking bruises on his upper arms, and – upon inspection, his ankles. 

“I – I don’t know,” Daniel muttered, pressing his fingers to the bruises experimentally. “They weren’t here yesterday.” 

Johnny stepped closer, close enough that the heat from his cup of coffee was radiating over to Daniel. “These look like hands,” he said, and his hand went, unbidden, to trace the bruise. Goosebumps erupted on Daniel’s already chilled skin. “Look,” he indicated the thin lines on the inside of Daniel’s arm. “Fingers.” 

“They can’t be fingers,” Daniel scoffed, craning over to see the bruises better. “I’m sure it’s just…” 

“Just what, LaRusso?” Johnny asked, taking a step away from him, taking the warmth of the coffee cup with him. 

Daniel didn’t answer. He remembered the whispering, his own freezing hands on his arms in that forest, so cold they didn’t feel like his own hands. 

“Look, you don’t have to play into the stupid urban legends about this place,” Johnny said, taking a sip of the coffee and turning back to the railing. “I’ve been to this house dozens of times and I’ve never seen any ghosts.” 

“What?” Daniel asked, wishing suddenly for the blanket he left behind in the other room. “What urban legends?” 

“Oh, you know, the Charleston House is full of ghosts, etc etc,” Johnny said, waving his hand, pencil between his fingers. “Everyone says that about this place because the original owners died in here –”

“They _died_ in here?” 

“Calm down, princess, everyone died in their homes back then,” Johnny said with an absent laugh. “Anyway, people keep saying this place is haunted, or that they’ve seen ghosts here, but I’ve spent hours in here, and no ghost has tried to start shit with me, so.” 

He paused in his rambling recollection and turned back to Daniel, who had his arms crossed over his chest, careful to avoid the bruises that were just now starting to hurt. 

“So…this isn’t some elaborate prank?” he asked, pointing to the bruises on Daniel’s arms. 

“No.” 

“Oh.” 

Daniel wasn’t sure what else to say. He was distracted by the radiating ache coming from his upper arms and his ankles, bone deep and cold that he couldn’t shake off. Johnny slipped his tape measure into his pocket and continued his work, humming quietly to himself. 

He must have just grabbed his own arms while he was asleep. That was the only conclusion that made sense. He lifted his arm and tried to put his fingers over the pattern of bruises, to match the handprint. But the thumb was on the wrong side…and that didn’t explain the bruises on his ankles.

He looked up and caught the gaze of someone standing at the top of the stairs – jaw gaped open, bloodstain in a thick line in the middle of the chin, eyes white and clouded over. He didn’t scream – he heard a choking sound come out of his mouth, the rest of his body going cold like he’d been doused in ice water. 

He felt rather than saw Johnny turn around to see him, half-smile already on his face. It melted clean off at the look on Daniel’s face, and then he was at Daniel’s side, waving his hand in front of his face, gently shaking his shoulders. 

But Daniel couldn’t move. He could only see the person – he couldn’t determine their gender – at the top of the stairs. 

“LaRusso?” he heard distantly, as if Johnny was shouting down a long tunnel. “LaRusso, come on, can you hear me?” 

_You must feed_ – the voice was coming from the thing at the top of the stairs, though the jaw didn’t move. _You must feed._

“LaRusso, hey – _Jesus Christ_ you’re cold – God, hold on, I’ll be right back –”

 _Feed._

Two hands shoved Daniel, hard, in the chest, and he stumbled backward, landing in a heap in Johnny’s unsuspecting arms. He was holding the blanket from the kitchen, his face so pale it was almost ashen. Daniel heaved breath through his open mouth, like he’d been underwater for too long, and Johnny wrapped his arms around him, covering Daniel in the blanket, trying to stop the shivering. 

“What – what the fuck was that?” 

Daniel’s teeth were chattering, loud in his skull. “You didn’t – you didn’t see it?” 

“See what? See you stare off into space? It was – what the hell – was that some kind of _episode_?” 

“It was standing at the top of the stairs.” 

Johnny’s arms were rubbing up and down Daniel’s arms now, a desperate attempt to warm him up. “You’re freezing,” he said, ignoring Daniel’s last statement. “I gotta check on this heater, man, this can’t be healthy for you.” 

“It’s not the cold, it’s the –”

“Of course it’s the cold, LaRusso, you’re face is practically blue,” Johnny argued, carefully extricating himself from Daniel and stomping over to the thermostat. “It’s only 53 goddamn degrees in here, who was the last asshole who made sure that heater worked?” 

He was agitated, his hands trembling on the thermostat controls, dirty fingernails prying off the plastic cover to look intently behind it. Daniel didn’t speak, didn’t take his eyes off him. He didn’t want to know what else he’d see if he looked around. 

_Feed._

He swallowed past a hard lump in his throat. What did feed mean? 

“Okay, come on, LaRusso,” Johnny was standing in front of him now, eyes carefully inspecting Daniel’s face. “I need to get some stuff from the hardware store, and then we’re picking up some space heaters.” 

“We?” 

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” Johnny said firmly. “Let’s go, princess.”


	2. Chapter 2

The drive to the hardware store was a blur – Daniel listened to the sound of Johnny’s voice, soothing alongside the rattle of his ratty pickup truck and the hum of the heater. There was a song playing on his radio, something from his childhood that Daniel could recognize without identifying, but still, he stared out the window at the off-putting landscape without really seeing. 

They pulled into a parking spot at the front and Johnny went around to the passenger side to open the door for Daniel, offering him his arm. Daniel took it, Johnny’s body heat radiating through his flannel (God, how cold _was_ he?) and followed him into the store. 

“I’m going to get some batteries for that thermostat of yours and see if that’s not part of the problem,” Johnny said, his tone indicating he was talking more to himself than to Daniel. “Beyond that, I think I’ll have to call Dutch to get him out to look at that furnace.” 

“Not your specialty?” Daniel asked, the words stiff coming out of his mouth, like he’d forgotten how to speak. Johnny gave him a surprised, pleased look that Daniel tried not to read too much into. 

“I specialize in everything, princess,” Johnny said cheerfully, mood drastically improved now that Daniel was speaking. “But Dutch is _better_ at it, so I will let him handle it. Besides, I have a railing to fix.” 

He pushed the little cart down the aisle and stopped to inspect some batteries, Daniel trudging behind him. “You said there were urban legends about the Charleston House,” he said finally, after Johnny had chosen some batteries and was moving on. “What are they?” 

Johnny pursed his lips and looked right, then left, and turned left to another aisle. “Charleston House is called that because the original owners came from Charleston, South Carolina. They moved into that house because their daughter had gotten into some scandal with a married man. Instead of allowing herself to be publicly shamed for taking part in adultery, the daughter, Susannah, insisted that she was in love with the man and that they would be together.” He stopped eyes scanning a small selection of space heaters. 

“The parents packed her up and brought her here, where they hoped to start fresh. Except Susannah was inconsolable. She wrote letters to her beloved day and night, and when her parents took away her paper and ink, she started scratching the words into the walls.” 

“Jesus.” 

“This is just the story I heard, alright, it could all be bullshit,” Johnny pointed out, grabbing two different space heaters and setting them carefully into the cart. “Anyway, the parents tried to force Susannah to go to church, to go to confession, but instead she had some kind of breakdown and asked the priest to punish her for her sins, and he called a doctor, who declared that Susannah was insane.” 

“ _Was_ she insane?” 

“If you want the real history, you could ask Jimmy,” Johnny shrugged. “He grew up here, went off to Columbia University to get a degree in history, but his father got sick, so he had to come back here to take over the family business.” 

“What is the family business?” Daniel asked. 

“Farming,” Johnny wrinkled his nose. “But he still loves history, so he’s devoured pretty much all of the town’s history that he could get his hands on. There’s plenty of weird shit about that house in the town records.” 

“Did Susannah kill herself?” Daniel asked, thinking of the figure at the top of the stairs, of the gaping jaw. 

Johnny gave him an alarmed look. “No,” he said slowly. “Her parents had her committed. But both of her parents joined some kind of cult after Susannah was…well, they called it being _put away_. They were apparently upset, and they were shunned once Susannah’s scandal reached the town, so they weren’t welcome at the established church. So, they went to another one.” 

“A cult,” Daniel said dubiously. 

Johnny lifted one shoulder and stopped pushing the cart, leaning against it to survey Daniel more completely. “Look, weird shit has happened in that house, no doubt about it,” he said. “One of my friends –”

He stopped suddenly, eyes over Daniel’s shoulder, but before he could turn around, Johnny was clearing his throat and turning away. “Either way, I’ve been trying to fix up that house on and off for years, and no matter how many ghost stories I’ve heard, nothing has ever tried to spook me.” 

“You _know_ I’m not lying,” Daniel insisted, catching Johnny’s arm before he could move away. “I saw something _before_ you told me about the house.” 

“I think you’re tired and cold, and you’ve been living off of instant coffee,” Johnny said softly. “You said you drove through the night to get here. How many nights did you drive through?” 

Daniel withdrew his hand. “That’s not relevant.” 

“If you’re sleep deprived –”

“I know what I saw!” 

“Yeah, okay,” Johnny said placatingly. “You saw something, okay. But you also need to consider _why_ you might have seen it. Sleep deprivation, lack of food…” Johnny hesitated, and then pushed forward determinedly, “guilt about leaving your fiancée at the altar –”

Daniel scoffed, loud enough that Johnny looked around to make sure no one else heard. “That’s not my problem!” 

“Okay, okay, I believe you,” Johnny eyes were such an intense blue, fixed intently on Daniel’s, and he could see the sincerity, the worry, in them. “I’m just trying to give you options.” 

“You don’t even know me,” Daniel pointed out, and it was a strange statement, in its simplicity. It was true, but talking to Johnny wasn’t like talking to a stranger. There was a familiarity there, an ease that Daniel chalked up to Johnny’s easy charm. 

Johnny blinked and looked down. “You’re right.” 

“So why are you doing this?” Daniel asked, motioning to the hardware store, to the items in the cart. “Doing your job?” 

“My _job_ was to clean up the cobwebs,” Johnny pointed out. 

“So?” Daniel prompted. 

“I’ve always been drawn to outcasts,” Johnny said vaguely, giving Daniel a wan half-smile before he turned away. “Besides, do you want to be in that house alone?” 

Daniel watched him amble down the aisle. “No,” he said finally.

“Great,” Johnny replied. “Come on, we’re going to grab some food and then I’ll call Jimmy and Dutch.” 

***

Dutch was, apparently, one of Johnny’s childhood friends. They didn’t even speak in full sentences when they were together. They were just like kids, playful and loud and full of energy. It almost exhausted Daniel to watch, and filled him with an unspeakable nostalgic envy. 

“I checked the heater –”

“Yeah, yeah, I _bet_ you did,” Dutch shoved Johnny in the shoulder, his platinum blond hair sticking up in every direction, his eyes full of a manic energy that made Daniel nervous. 

“Anyway, I got some batteries –”

“And lemme guess, batteries didn’t work, because –”

“Because I didn’t actually check the furnace –”

“And if you had looked you could have fixed it because –”

“It was the filter,” they said simultaneously, Dutch elbowing Johnny in the chest at the conclusion. 

“It’s _always_ the filter,” Johnny confided to Daniel, who was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs to the basement, trying not to look around. There were too many shadows down here, too many places that were too dark for the light of Dutch’s flashlight to reach. The dim lightbulb fixed to the ceiling sent down a soupy, yellow glow that hardly reached the floor, so Johnny and Dutch looked like they were standing in knee-deep dark water. 

“This house has been empty for…” Dutch turned to Johnny, “When did Shannon live here?” 

Johnny shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Two years ago.” 

“Shannon?” Daniel asked. 

“Yeah,” Dutch confirmed. “Why?” 

“Nothing,” Daniel shook his head. He could feel the cold on him again, like vines swirling around his legs. He swallowed thickly, trying to stay focused on Johnny and Dutch’s conversation about when Jimmy was coming by, if he was finding fatherhood easy or difficult, mutterings of a life Daniel knew nothing about. 

But the cold was creeping up his legs, and the higher it went, the more Daniel realized he could feel the weight of someone’s gaze on him. Someone was watching. 

Without speaking, he scrambled up the basement stairs to the ground floor, hearing the uncertain silence that fell in the wake of his exit. The ground floor didn’t shake the cold from his legs – Daniel hunched over, his hands rubbing over his pants to warm his legs, to chase the chill away. 

When he straightened back up, there was a handprint – distinct, complete, whole, on the bottom step down to the basement. The fingers were thin, almost skeletal, the tips of the fingers smeared. Like someone had been climbing up the stairs using their hands. 

“It’s just a coincidence,” Daniel muttered, turning away from the handprint. “It’s just dust. Just a coincidence.” 

A door upstairs slammed. 

He went rigid, eyes searching even while the rest of his body begged him to close his eyes, to cover his ears, to wait until it was over and he was safe again. 

“LaRusso?” Johnny’s voice carried softly up the stairs. 

A cabinet in the kitchen slammed. 

He could hear Johnny’s boots on the stairs. He wanted to tell him to stop, to look at the handprint on the top step, but his voice was gone, chased away by fear. He kept his eyes on the second floor, visible from where he stood on the first floor, waiting to see the figure again. 

The basement door slammed shut. 

“LaRusso?” Johnny asked, and Daniel could hear him knocking on the door. “LaRusso, this isn’t funny.” The doorknob jiggled loosely, and then with more force. “Hey, open the door, asshole.” 

There wasn’t quite a laugh in his voice anymore – Daniel could hear a tinge of fear. 

He willed himself to move, to get to the door, to open it, but he could hear footsteps – thundering footsteps, rushing down the stairs. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see them – a man wearing heavy boots, running down the stairs and past Daniel, lingering between the present and the past, on his way out the front door. A woman – his wife, maybe – following after him. 

He threw himself toward the basement door, trying to move against the fear the held him immobile, and tried to turn the handle. 

It was ice cold. 

“LaRusso,” Johnny could hear him. “This door isn’t supposed to lock.” 

“I didn’t lock it,” Daniel managed, his voice hoarse. “I _didn’t_ , I swear.” 

And then he heard Dutch’s voice. “Okay, _haha_ , Johnny, that’s not funny.” 

Johnny paused; Daniel could hear him turning away from the door. “What?” 

“Don’t play stupid, I don’t know what prank you set up down here –”

“It’s not a prank,” Daniel said through the door. “Dutch – _Dutch_ , it’s not a prank.” 

“LaRusso,” Johnny’s voice was back at the door, like he was trying to speak through the frame. “I don’t think we’re alone down here.” 

His fingernails were scraping against the old wood, peeling back the yellowing paint, trying to force the doorknob open, but still, it held fast, Johnny’s voice on the other end drowned out by the sound of the door, of Daniel’s thudding heartbeat in his ears, by the door upstairs, opening and slamming shut over and over again. 

And then Johnny shouted, and Daniel heard him go tumbling down the stairs, and everything went silent. 

***

Daniel woke on the floor, Johnny’s face above him. There was a cut on his forehead, over an inch long, blood trickling steadily out of it. When Daniel’s eyes opened, Johnny let out a loud sigh and collapsed back, onto the floor himself, his hand rising to gingerly touch the wound on his head. Daniel sat up, his own hand trying to touch Johnny’s wound, trying to assess how deep it was. And then he spotted Dutch, holding a towel to his hand, the towel already red. 

“What –”

“We should be asking you that, LaRusso,” Dutch interrupted. 

“Come on, Dutch, be reasonable,” a new voice said quietly. “He’s just woken up.” 

Daniel whirled around to lock eyes with a newcomer, sleeves of his work shirt rolled up to his elbows, jeans dirty like the stains never really came out. He gave Daniel a half-smile, half-grimace. “Jimmy,” he said in introduction. 

Daniel turned to Johnny, who had managed to sit up again. 

“Something shoved me down the stairs,” he said to Daniel’s confused face. “Fell right into Dutch, who was coming up the stairs behind me.” 

“I didn’t _see_ shit –”

“I didn’t either,” Johnny insisted, “but I _felt_ hands.” 

“And then what?” Daniel asked, peeling Johnny’s hand away from his forehead to check the cut. He pressed his fingers to the rapidly swelling flesh around it, grimacing sympathetically when Johnny winced. 

“And then the door opened, and you were standing at the top of the stairs,” Johnny said softly, his voice taking on an almost pitying tone that Daniel didn’t like. “And you said…” He trailed off, his eyes leaving Daniel’s and settling on the floor. 

“And I said?” 

“You said – _we all must bleed_ ,” Dutch finished. “It was…a weird voice.” 

“I don’t understand –”

“I know what I heard,” Dutch insisted. “Johnny heard it too.” 

Daniel turned to Johnny. “And then what?” 

“You – you came into the basement and closed the door,” Johnny said, his voice thick, “and then I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear footsteps, like a _lot_ of footsteps, and then I heard a loud knocking –”

“That was me,” Jimmy interrupted, striding back into the room purposefully, holding a rag in one hand and a First Aid kit in the other. 

“And you just…fell over,” Johnny finished. “Like a balloon that just…” he whooshed air out of his mouth. 

The urge to vomit was strong – so strong Daniel pushed himself clear of Johnny’s arms and heaved a slow breath through his nose. If he closed his eyes, he could see what Johnny described – he could see Johnny and Dutch, cowering at the bottom of the stairs, Dutch bleeding through his fingers, Johnny’s blue eyes wide with fear – and he could feel himself walking down the steps, echoing footsteps beside him. 

“I – I didn’t do that –” he said when no one spoke. “I swear, I didn’t do that.” 

“LaRusso,” Johnny said, so gently Daniel wanted to hit him. “We know what we saw.” 

“Just like I _knew_ what I saw at the top of the stairs,” Daniel argued. “And you had plenty of excuses for that.” 

“Wait,” Jimmy said, turning away from his systematic cleaning of the vague wound on Dutch’s hand. “Did you say the top of the stairs?” 

Johnny was still looking at Daniel, mouth downturned in a frown, brows furrowed, eyes dark. Daniel tore his eyes away to turn to Jimmy. “Yes. Why?” 

“It’s just…” Jimmy pressed a bandage into the palm of Dutch’s hand and stood. “I brought over some of the documents that might be important to you – Johnny told me what happened – and well, the original owners –”

“Susannah –” Daniel interrupted. 

“Susannah’s parents, Eloise and Jethro, they were manipulated and isolated when Susannah was institutionalized, and they ended up joining a cult –”

“Right, Johnny said –”

“Well, this cult believed that the town of Newton was built on cursed ground,” Jimmy said, looking around the room. “So much slaughter had gone on during the American Revolution, and Native American tribes were slaughtered to extinction with – with, well impunity. But there was a settlement here, of what they describe to be pagans, but what must have been some offshoot of Vikings, based on the very few descriptions we have from the original settlers – and they believed in sacrifice making the land fertile. So, they would butcher animals, sometimes people if the livestock weren’t healthy enough, to feed the land and in return, the land would bear them crops.” 

“Okay, so we’re going back to –”

“They were probably here even before England sent their people over,” Jimmy waved his hand dismissively. “The timeline is based entirely on when British people learned about them from Native Americans. There is evidence that Native Americans largely left them alone.” 

“What does that have to do with Susannah and her family?” 

“That cult they were pulled into looked to be a revival of that same religion,” Jimmy explained. “The town was going through hard times. They weren’t very good at farming yet, and they were just far enough away from big cities that every judicial issue took months to solve, so politically the town felt like they were at a bit of a standstill. So…these disgruntled farmers took matters into their own hands.” 

“Sacrifice?” Daniel asked, aghast. 

“Mostly of livestock,” Jimmy reassured him. “But…when livestock ran out…” 

“So they killed _people_ here,” Dutch said. “And that means there’s ghosts?” 

“I’m not saying there are ghosts,” Jimmy replied. “I’m saying that Eloise and Jethro became part of this cult. And part of that meant killing livestock. So, when they killed the wrong goat or sheep…members of the town came to their house and shot Eloise and Jethro in their home. Eloise took a shot to the head standing at the top of those stairs.” 

_You must feed._

Daniel shivered. 

***

Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of a small moving truck – A U-Haul Daniel rented in a rush, stuffed full of his scant belongings. They all sat in silence while the two movers deposited Daniel’s furniture (nothing more than a couch, a bed, a dresser, and a table) in the middle of the foyer with the boxes packed around it. 

The idea of unpacking in this house was ludicrous – Daniel knew instinctively he’d be living out of those boxes until he managed to get out of this place permanently. 

With the movers gone, Dutch cleared his throat and stood up. “I’m going to…change that filter,” he said, raising his eyebrows at Johnny, who took his cue with no change in his face. 

“I’ll help you.” 

Daniel knew what the conversation would be. _This guy is insane, leave him to freeze to death in this rickety old house and get out while you can._

He agreed with him. 

“You know,” Jimmy said gently. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re crazy.” 

Daniel scoffed, tucking his hands into his armpits to keep them warm. “You should.” 

Jimmy picked up the shoulder bag at his feet and hoisted it onto his lap. “There are multiple documented cases of apparitions in this house, Daniel,” he said matter-of-factly. “Even worse.” 

“Worse?” 

“Possession,” Jimmy said, glancing up at the open door to the basement. “About ten years ago, a writer moved in here. Said he was going to write the next great American novel.” 

“Did he?” Daniel asked sardonically. 

“Wrote his obituary,” Jimmy remarked dryly. “His book was supposed to be a meditation on racial injustice in jazz music or something, and what he turned in to his publishers was a ghost story. He wrote down everything he experienced in this house. He talked about seeing things, losing time, waking up in weird places, covered in blood.” 

“Where is this book?” Daniel asked, even though the idea of reading it, of identifying with this person, made him sick. 

“They didn’t publish it,” Jimmy shrugged one shoulder. “He lost his book deal and had to give back his advance, which bankrupted him. He voluntarily committed himself to a psychiatric institution outside of Boston about a year after that. That’s the last anyone really heard of him.” 

He pulled a photo out of his bag and passed it over to Daniel. The author’s book jacket photo. 

He looked totally normal. Daniel swallowed and passed it back. He’d hoped for someone who already looked halfway to crazy. 

“Who else?” he asked. 

“Well, there was Shannon, of course,” Jimmy said nonchalantly. “But I’m sure Johnny already mentioned her.” 

“All I know is she lived here two years ago,” Daniel replied slowly. “Shannon?” 

“Shannon Keene,” Jimmy elaborated. “Johnny’s ex-wife?” 

“What are you guys talking about?” Dutch was plodding heavily up the stairs, trampling over the handprint Daniel had seen earlier. Johnny was following close behind him. Daniel didn’t answer; he was too busy fumbling for his phone, scrolling through his recent call lists to the phone call from the realtor that sold him the house. 

_Shannon Keene._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for hanging, accidental self-harm, death.

Johnny woke to the sound of Daniel muttering in his sleep. It was somehow not entirely pitch black in the master bedroom, though there was no real light source that could explain how Johnny could see Daniel stretched out on the queen-sized bed, on his back, with his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. 

His decision to stay in the house with Daniel overnight was almost entirely made out of guilt. He remembered coming up the stairs from the basement, Dutch’s words still ringing in his ears: 

_“I don’t care how pretty you think he is, you are leaving this house with me the moment we’re done here, Johnny Lawrence.”_

And then Daniel was looking over at him from the couch, where he was sitting with Jimmy, confusion skittering over his still frightened face. “Shannon Keene?” he said, and Johnny’s eyes went to Jimmy, and Jimmy was grimacing at him in apology, and Dutch was muttering something behind him that sounded like “oh shit.” 

“What – what about Shannon?” Johnny asked, directing the question to Jimmy, who shook his head just once to let him know he’d made a bad decision. 

“Is Shannon Keene a realtor?” Daniel asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Johnny clenched his jaw and looked back at Dutch, who avoided his gaze. “No.” 

“But she is your ex-wife. And she hired you to clean this house up before I showed up,” Daniel said firmly. It wasn’t a question – it was a statement of fact. 

He could hear his blood rushing in his ears. “Um. Yes and no.” 

“So who the _fuck_ is Shannon Keene?” Daniel asked, and Jimmy closed his shoulder bag, hanging it on the edge of the couch, and Dutch stepped away from Johnny to sit on the arm of the couch beside Jimmy. “And did she sell me this house or not?” 

Johnny scoffed. “What kind of realtor sells a house to someone they’ve never met? And, by the way, who buys a house without ever looking at it?” 

Daniel blinked, looking momentarily wounded, but pushed through it. “Do I own the damn house or not, Johnny?” 

Johnny shrugged. “Probably not.” 

“Probably?” 

“I don’t talk to my ex-wife, LaRusso,” Johnny snapped. “She bought this house after we got divorced and it drove her nuts. She’s been trying to sell it for years. When my boss told me that I was supposed to clean this place up, I assumed she’d succeeded. I assumed she’d done the paperwork or found a legitimate buyer. And then you showed up – and pulled the key out from under the mat, and said you’d never seen the house before.” 

“And you just…didn’t tell me that your ex-wife swindled me into paying for a haunted house that I don’t even own?” Daniel asked. 

“I didn’t know for sure what she’d done,” Johnny argued. “I’ve been trying to track her down since you got here, but I’ve been…a little busy.” He glanced guiltily at Jimmy, who pursed his lips and looked away. 

“Where does she live?” Daniel asked. “We will go find her now.” 

Johnny sighed and looked over at Dutch. “I – I don’t know where she lives.” 

“She’s your ex-wife –”

“Emphasis on the _ex,_ LaRusso. Do you know where your fiancée is right now?” 

“Don’t start –”

“Look, after…everything that happened in this house, she was involuntarily checked into an institution. She was there for a few months, and then, as far as I know, she was released. I heard she might have gone back to live with her parents, but I never found out,” Johnny said. A thump on the second floor rattled through the house, and he turned away from Daniel’s furious gaze to find the source of the noise. 

No one else looked for it. 

Daniel turned to Dutch and Jimmy. “And you two?”

“I’ve never kept up with Shannon,” Dutch said flatly. “She wasn’t a fan.” 

“Understatement of the year,” Johnny muttered. 

“No idea,” Jimmy replied quietly. 

“I need to know if I own this godforsaken house,” Daniel said, turning his fiery gaze back to Johnny. “If I don’t, then…” he trailed off, his eyes looking at nothing while he tried to think of what his options were. Johnny didn’t envy him. Finally, with a groan, Daniel covered his face with his hands, digging the heels of his hands into the recesses of his eyes. “Ugh, I need a lawyer.” 

Dutch and Jimmy had taken their quiet leave after that, leaving Johnny and Daniel alone, Daniel looking unmoored and lost between the stacks of boxes piled up around him, Johnny trying to find something comforting to say and coming up empty. 

So here he was, awake on the little cot beside Daniel’s bed, trying to decide if he should get up and try to decipher what Daniel was muttering in his sleep, because it had to be in his sleep, didn’t it? He didn’t look to be in any sort of distress – if anything, he looked like he slept like a vampire – all rigid and flat on his back. The only terrifying part of the picture was that his eyes were open.

And then something at the corner of the bed moved, and Johnny’s curiosity pulled him out of the warmth of his blanket. The sheet near Daniel’s foot was taut, like something was pulling on it. He could see, through the dim, almost complete darkness, a faint fluttering of what looked like dust particles that he was accustomed to seeing in bands of sunlight. 

The sheet near Daniel’s foot contracted around his ankle, and Johnny could see, with sudden clarity, that it was in the shape of a hand. 

The bruises around Daniel’s arms and legs. 

“LaRusso,” he said, and Daniel’s muttering stopped for a second before he resumed, his mouth barely moving. It was almost like the sound was emanating out of him rather than being spoken, wave upon wave of whispering that only got louder the closer Johnny got to the side of the bed. His eyes were fixed on something far away, beyond the ceiling, beyond Charleston House. 

The impressions on Daniel’s arms and legs were still there, the flesh bunched between sections of invisible fingers. Johnny thought to reach out and touch them, but felt the ice cold air in the area around the bed and pulled back, thinking better of it. 

He listened harder, trying to separate words from the stream of noise that seemed to get louder the closer he listened. He could hear the words _blood, feed, death,_ but as soon as he thought he heard them, they were washed away again by a wall of sound. He shook his head, as if trying to push the whispers out of his head, and forced himself to take another step toward the side of the bed, toward Daniel. He was shivering, Johnny could see even from where he was standing, but there was a sheen of sweat standing out on his forehead, and the bunched muscles in his jaw told him Daniel’s jaw was clenched tightly. 

He reached for Daniel’s arm and collided with something solid. 

There was nothing obstructing his way. He squinted in the darkness, trying to make out some sort of intruder that he might have missed, some logical explanation, but found nothing. He reached for Daniel again, and this time his hand was slapped away, hard enough that he stumbled to the side, almost against the wall. 

“LaRusso,” he said instead, loud enough that he was sure Daniel could hear him, would have to hear him. “LaRusso, wake up.” 

Nothing happened. The whispering continued, unabated. 

“LaRusso,” Johnny shouted, taking a hesitant step forward. “Wake up!” 

The whispering stopped – the silence that ran through the room was somehow like heavy cotton pressing on his ears, a complete lack of sound that made Johnny feel exposed – seen. He looked over to Daniel, hopefully. 

His eyes were still open, and they were fixed on Johnny.

And then a hand closed around his throat, so tight he couldn’t even wheeze, and shoved him backward, against the wall of the bedroom, so hard his shoulders bounced off of it before landing with purpose. He scrabbled at his own neck, fingernails scraping against the skin of his throat and found no physical presence, no hand pressing against his neck. 

But still, something was pressing against his windpipe, so hard his vision was spotting out. He could feel his fingernails tearing at the skin of his neck now, the blood that seeped out from under his nails, but the pain was nothing compared to the panic of not being able to breathe. 

The last thing he saw was Daniel sitting up in bed, so straight-backed and rigid that he knew it wasn’t really Daniel somehow. He met his gaze, the brown eyes swallowed completely by blackness, and knew no more. 

***

He woke to the sound of screams. 

He jolted awake, his hand gingerly tracing the lines of missing skin on his neck, and the scabs that were already forming over them and swallowed, feeling the bruise that surely was already building around his throat. He looked over at the bed – where Daniel had sat up before he passed out – the bed was empty, the sheets trailed over the floor like whoever had gotten up was not aware of their presence. 

Another scream brought him to his feet, so dizzy he had to put one hand on the wall to keep from falling over. He heaved breaths through his open mouth, as if to make up for the missing oxygen from before. 

It was Daniel’s scream – he could hear it echoing up the stairs from the foyer. Johnny had to concentrate to even be able to put one foot in front of the other – the swirling darkness of the hallway plus his own wooziness was making it hard to stand. He could see movement out of the corner of his eye but didn’t dare investigate, not when he knew the only other person in the house was at the bottom of the stairs. 

He was wrong – _so wrong_ – about what was in this house. He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t begin to fathom how he’d managed to be in this house, to update its roof, to fix its wiring, and not have encountered anything like this until now. Perhaps whatever lived here didn’t think he was a threat – until now. 

By the time Johnny made it to the bottom of the stairs Daniel had stopped screaming and was sobbing into his hands, his voice wrecked and hoarse, the bruises on his arms darker, angrier, fresh. He reached for Johnny, catching him on the arm and pulling him toward his side, and pointed up. 

Hanging from the banisters of the second story was a rotting body, just barely swinging in the stillness. 

Johnny turned away, tightening his jaw against revulsion. He could smell it now, the sweet stench of rot that came with a body recently dead. He didn’t want to look at it, at the familiar shape of the body as it hung limply from the rope. 

He was pretty sure the body was Shannon Keene. 

“We have to call the police,” he said, horrified at the hoarse whisper that came out of his mouth. It was like whatever had tried to squeeze the life out of him had almost taken his voice instead. 

Daniel nodded, carefully turning away from the body so he didn’t have to see it. “I think I put it there,” he said quietly. 

Johnny froze, his eyes searching for the house’s landline. “You think what?” 

“I don’t remember walking down here,” Daniel said, and his voice was ragged, dogged by hiccups that hysterical sobbing had forced out of him. “I don’t remember waking up, I don’t remember anything, but look –”

He held out his hands for Johnny to see. Fresh, raw red welts were rising on his fingers and the top of his hand, where he had calluses from whatever he did in California. 

“Rope burn,” Johnny said softly. 

Daniel paused, his eyes catching something. “What happened to your neck?” 

Johnny didn’t answer, but took Daniel by the arm and led him into the kitchen, where the moon was shining brightly through the windows, and pulled the phone off its cradle to dial. 

***

“When was the last time you talked to Shannon?” Tommy asked, the notepad poised in his hand, pen on the paper. He was looking intently at Daniel, but Johnny could see the way his eyes darted over to him that what he really wanted was to ask Johnny these questions, ask him more questions. Other cops milled around behind him, taking photos, marking things down on files, putting others in little bags. 

“She called me the day before I got to the house,” Daniel muttered. “She told me that she was going to leave the key for me under the mat, and that she had some other business to take care of, so she wouldn’t be here when I got here.” 

“You didn’t think that was odd?” Tommy asked, making a note. “That your alleged realtor wasn’t going to be here when you arrived?”

“I had been driving for _days_ ,” Daniel defended weakly, “I didn’t really have enough space in my mind to think something was strange.” 

“And the key was where she said it would be?” 

Daniel nodded, and a shiver ran through him so violently that Johnny lifted the blanket that had pooled around his waist and fitted it around his shoulders, his arms holding it in place. Tommy looked over at him, finally, a question lingering around the lines of his face. 

“I haven’t talked to Shannon in years, Tommy,” Johnny said before he could ask, his hand tightening momentarily on Daniel’s shoulder before he pulled it away. “You know that.” 

“Who contacted you about the job on this house?” Tommy asked. 

“Carmen told me that a woman called and told her someone new was going to be moving in and they wanted the place cleaned up a little to prepare for their arrival,” Johnny said. “She didn’t say who called.” 

“You think it was Shannon?” 

“Who else?” Johnny asked. 

Tommy turned back to Daniel. “And you don’t remember getting out of bed, or coming down the stairs. You just remember waking up and seeing the body hanging.” 

“I already told you –”

“Weird things happen in this house, Mr. LaRusso,” Tommy said firmly. “Me asking more than once is not trying to catch you in a lie. I’m just trying to understand.” 

“I don’t remember anything,” Daniel muttered. 

Tommy surveyed him sympathetically, clicking his pen and shoving it into his pocket. “The County Coroner is going to make sure she’s cut down and taken out of here as soon as possible,” he said bracingly. “And the forensic team should be out of here within the next hour or so.” He turned to Johnny, who was watching Daniel carefully, worry etched all over his face. “Johnny, a word.” 

Johnny stood and fitted the blanket tightly around Daniel, taking his hands in his own to make sure he was holding it in place. He was still shaking, though the medical examiner said it was probably cold more than shock, but Johnny couldn’t be sure. Daniel’s eyes met his for a moment and Johnny relished the amber color, so different from the blank, dark eyes that looked at him earlier. 

He met Tommy by the kitchen door.

“I know what you’re going to say –” he began.

Tommy scoffed quietly. “No, I don’t think you do,” he said. 

“You’re going to tell me that I need to get the hell out of here, leave this new guy, damn the consequences, the same as Dutch,” Johnny said. “Well, I’m not. Shannon scammed this guy, Tommy. She let him buy this house, not legally, mind you, and let him move in here knowing what it was.” 

“That doesn’t mean you have to stay here with him,” Tommy said. “You don’t know him –”

“It doesn’t matter,” Johnny interrupted. “He needs me.” 

“He _needs_ to get the hell out of this house,” Tommy said. “And so do you. You like this guy? Great, good for you. You want to protect him? Sounds like the Johnny I’ve known since I was a kid. If both of those things are true, you’ve gotta get him out of this house.” 

Johnny bit his lip. “I think I’m gonna call Bobby.” 

“Bobby?” Tommy asked incredulously. “Not that I have anything against our dear Bobby, but how is a priest going to help you?” 

Johnny sighed. “This house is doing something to him, Tommy,” he said. “Something bad.” 

“Is that what happened to your neck?” Tommy asked. 

Johnny gingerly touched the scratches on his neck and didn’t answer. 

“If you think this guy needs a priest, call him,” Tommy said, defeated. “But get him out of the house for next couple of hours. The forensic team is going to turn this place inside out. Maybe some space will do him some good.” 

***

Johnny could feel Daniel’s eyes on him across the booth. The stale, fluorescent lights of the diner only made him feel more exhausted, like living was just looking through a stack of antique, wrinkled photographs. Daniel himself looked unmoored, like a child abandoned by his parents. The dark bags under his eyes were tinged red from his tears, from where he rubbed them raw with frustration. The jacket he wore obscured the bruises on his arms, but Johnny knew they were there. 

“I’m sorry,” Daniel finally said, staring down at his steaming cup of coffee. “About Shannon.” 

Johnny swallowed, and then forced himself to shrug. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said woodenly. “You didn’t know her. You didn’t kill her.” 

Daniel scoffed, and Johnny didn’t have to ask him to explain to know what he meant. Even if he had nothing to do with Shannon’s death, he still felt responsible. By all accounts, he was the one who strung her up in the foyer. Johnny shook his head, trying to shake the image free. 

He wanted to feel more, to feel grief, sorrow, something, but everything was overshadowed by fear, by a need to do something. He was, and always had been, a man of action. This house was a problem that needed to be solved. He didn’t have time to feel things. 

But even as he thought it, an ache settled in his chest at the thought of Shannon. She’d wanted children, he remembered. She wanted a big house in the suburbs, a couple of kids, the white picket fence, the upper middle-class ostentation. She would never get that now.

He looked up from the table and caught Daniel watching him, tears in his big, brown eyes, and had to look away.

“I never should have come here,” he said, and Johnny watched one tear fall free, landing on the still damp, freshly cleaned table. 

Johnny shrugged. “I have no quarrel with the town you picked,” he said quietly, “but maybe your choice in house was a little terrible.” 

That startled a laugh out of Daniel, and Johnny reached for his arm across the table, trying to avoid his hands, bandaged from rope burn. His hand landed on his wrist, gentle and unthreatening. 

“I am going to protect you,” he said seriously, watching another tear sneak out of Daniel’s eye, without his permission. “I promise.” 

“Why?” it was a whisper, almost an afterthought, and if Johnny hadn’t been looking at Daniel’s face, he would have missed it altogether. 

“I told you,” he said bracingly. “I’ve always been drawn to outcasts.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for blood, cutting, an insinuation of possible suicide.

Johnny met Bobby out on the front step, the door closed over, with Daniel on the other side, wrapped in a blanket, the bruises on his arms mottled and overlapping. It was frigid outside, cold enough that Johnny wished he had his favorite hat with him, left behind on the kitchen table of his workshop back at his house. It would take only another few days of this cold before the snow would come and stay for a while, an unwelcome family guest. 

Bobby embraced him warmly, kind eyes full of sympathy, and pulled back to survey his face. His big eyes were wise, sharp and intelligent. Johnny watched his eyes travel down to the scratches on his throat. 

“I told you never to come back to this house,” Bobby reminded him, not unkindly. 

Johnny shrugged. “Well, at the time I thought you were just warning me off of Shannon.” 

The joke fell flat, the aftermath silent and awkward. It wasn’t right, making a joke with Shannon’s name in it, not now. Bobby didn’t mention it, but put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed. 

“Tommy called,” he said, “about half an hour before you did. Told me that I should try convincing you to leave this man to his fate, if only to save your life.” 

“I’m not leaving him,” Johnny said firmly. “He needs me.” 

“He doesn’t know you,” Bobby reminded him. “And you don’t know him.” 

Johnny sighed, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “I feel like I know him,” he said when no other words came to mind. They weren’t the right words to explain how he felt, or why he felt the way he did, but Bobby, sweet Bobby, seemed to understand. He always did. 

“I suppose that must be true,” he said softly. “You are calling in the big guns for him.” 

“You?” Johnny asked, confused. 

“God,” Bobby reminded him, tapping the Bible on his chest. “But, just so we’re clear, I’m not an expert on blessing homes and people and all of that. I was only raised Catholic. I’m ordained Lutheran.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Johnny answered. “Can you help him or not?” 

“Probably not,” Bobby said with a shrug. “But for you, Johnny, I’ll give it a try.” 

Johnny pulled him into a hug, so tight he could feel his arms protesting. “You’re the best, Bobby.” 

“I know,” Bobby laughed, shrugging him off. “Now, introduce me to your Juliet, Romeo.” 

Johnny rolled his eyes, and pushed the door completely open. The door swung open to reveal the couch Daniel had just been sitting on – empty. The blanket was left, pooled on the cushions, the indent of Daniel’s body still evident in the lividity of the cloth. Johnny stepped inside, shutting and locking the door behind Bobby, and looked around. 

“LaRusso?” he called out, listening for sounds.

“Maybe he just went into another room,” Bobby pointed out, but Johnny shook his head. Something wasn’t right – he could feel it in his gut. He looked up toward the stairs, where Daniel had seen the first figure, listening for footsteps. 

A quiet sound travelled up the stairs from the basement – Bobby’s surprised sound just confirmed that Johnny had heard the same thing. When he looked over, he saw that the door was just barely open, the darkness sneaking out of it. He definitely remembered closing that when he’d come up the stairs last with Dutch. 

“LaRusso?” he said again, this time louder. The sounds from the basement stopped. 

“I’m going to go get him,” Johnny said, turning back to Bobby. “Wait here.” 

“Come on, Johnny,” Bobby said incredulously. “Just because he’s in the basement doesn’t mean –”

“This house is doing something to him, Bobby,” Johnny insisted. “They’re making him do things, he’s losing time. He wouldn’t go down into that basement himself. He hated it down there.” 

“Well, come on then,” Bobby said, nudging Johnny toward the door. “We go together.” 

Johnny could see there would be no arguing with him. Bobby Brown had always been the most mature of the childhood group of friends, and somehow also the bravest. He wasn’t daunted by uncomfortable situations or conversations, and he certainly wasn’t afraid of the dark. Maybe that was why he and Johnny had always been close – Johnny wanted that courage, that fearlessness that he admired so much. 

The lights to the basement were off, but there was a faint glow of light at the bottom of the stairs. Carefully, with Bobby holding tightly to his shoulder behind him, Johnny inched down the stairs, one hand on the banister and the other in front of him. 

“LaRusso, let’s go upstairs,” he said, trying to be nonchalant. “It’s dusty and gross down here. Your pretty hair is going to get all dirty.” 

Bobby snorted quietly behind him, but didn’t say anything. 

Neither did Daniel, wherever he was. Johnny strained his eyes to see in the darkness, knowing and now regretting that the only light switch was at the top of the stairs behind them. He could still see light, as if it was just around the corner, emitting a faint glow, but no Daniel and no other source of light. He stepped down another step and a faint feeling of cotton surrounded him, pressing on his ears, the same way it did up in Daniel’s room. He paused, turning back to look at Bobby, who blinked at him in confusion. 

Another step, and then the whispers started. 

“Do you hear that?” he asked Bobby, who tightened his hold on Johnny’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure if that was a yes or not. 

There were only a few stairs left. He went down another one, and felt something brush his ankle. _It’s just a spider,_ he thought fitfully, trying to resist the urge to kick his foot out, to fall down the rest of the stairs. Down another step, and hands landed on his chest, large and firm, holding him back. 

He struggled against them, his own hands reacting instinctively and trying to find the obstruction. He found nothing, the same way he had when the hands had gone around his neck. He shoved against the resistance, and after another moment of struggling, the hands gave way and he stumbled, almost falling down the last two steps. 

“What the –”

“Welcome to Charleston House,” Johnny said flatly. 

The light was coming from candles, Johnny had seen them piled around on surfaces when he and Dutch had come down here earlier. They had made a joke about them – having candles in a basement when there was a perfectly functioning light was ridiculous. But they were all lit now, had been lit long enough that wax was flowing easily down the sides of the votives, spreading on the tables and floor. 

Kneeling in the middle of the floor, inside a weird shape drawn with what looked like chalk, was Daniel, a knife clutched so tightly in his hand his knuckles were white, the blade pointed at his own neck. In the dim light of the candle, Johnny could see that his eyes were black again. 

“Jesus,” Bobby muttered behind him. 

“LaRusso,” Johnny said, even though he knew he wasn’t talking to Daniel anymore. “I’m gonna need you to put that knife down, okay?” 

The whispers swelled around him, less a sound and more a physical thing, and he and Bobby stumbled forward, closer to the drawn symbol on the floor. Daniel didn’t react, didn’t move. It was like he wasn’t even there. 

_“You must feed,”_ the whispers coalesced into a single voice, so loud Johnny flinched away from it. Bobby, beside him, covered his ears. _“Feed.”_

Daniel’s hand rose, the blade pointed more cleanly against his neck. 

“ _Don’t!,_ ” Johnny shouted, and lunged forward, knowing that it was a bad idea, not caring about any sort of strategy. He came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the symbol on the floor, a hidden barrier keeping him out. 

_“Feed the land,”_ the voice said, and Johnny could hear that the one voice was made up of dozens of others, men, women, children. _“It must be fed.”_

Behind him, Bobby started praying, the words a rush of whispering under his breath. 

His decision to call Bobby felt so foolish now, when he was standing in the dark basement, surrounded by wisps of smoke, shifting so often he could never really catch their shapes, the chalk shape on the floor a faintly familiar Nordic symbol that he’d seen on some Travel TV show he turned on when he was half-drunk on a Wednesday night. 

He had just put his friend in danger on some Hail Mary play that probably wouldn’t even work. 

Abruptly, Bobby’s praying stopped. Johnny turned around, confused, and found Bobby’s eyes locked on his, wide with fear. His mouth was open, his hands, tight, like the knuckles were frozen with arthritis. He was trying, without success, to reach for his throat. 

“Shit,” Johnny muttered, turning away from Daniel to get to Bobby, whose face was turning red. He pulled at nothing, trying to find what he knew were hands around Bobby’s throat, finding nothing but the soft flesh. It wasn’t working. 

He could see Bobby’s eyes starting to roll back – panic gripped him firmly, and suddenly, something made sense. Johnny vaulted himself up the stairs and to the kitchen, where he grabbed another knife and sprinted back downstairs, not caring if he stumbled down the stairs this time.

“Here,” he said, taking the knife and slicing his forearm open. The blade was so sharp the cut felt colder than it did painful, but the blood dripped out of the gash easily, landing with a wet sound on the floor beneath. “Feed.”

Bobby gasped, clutching at his throat, breathing unevenly through his open mouth, collapsing onto the floor. 

“You okay, Bobby?” Johnny asked, his eyes turned back to Daniel. The hand holding the knife to his throat had gone almost lax, the blade tilted farther down, toward Daniel’s collarbone, as if the blood Johnny had spilled had distracted him. 

“What the hell, Johnny?” was Bobby’s answer. “You’re bleeding.” 

“You know, I can feel it,” Johnny said, trying to be sarcastic, but it came out more like a pant, the fear tainting all of his intentions. “The house, the things in the house, they used to sacrifice animals here, people, to feed the land, remember?” 

“I didn’t really listen to the stories –”

“Bobby!” 

“Right, yeah, sure,” Bobby said. “So you think it’s true?”

“I know it’s true,” Johnny insisted. “But this is what I need you to do, okay? I need you to go outside, to my truck. There’s a gas can there.” 

A hand closed around his throat, and he dropped the knife to protest, but Bobby didn’t need to hear anything else. He ran up the stairs, tripping up the steps, and Johnny could hear, with satisfaction, the sound of his footsteps headed toward the front door. 

“Daniel,” he wheezed, the word barely getting out past the grip on his neck. “I know you can hear me. I need you to get up. You have to put the knife down. We’re going to get out of here, okay? I promise.” 

The hand around his neck tightened, and the breath in his lungs stuttered out in a faint whine. 

“I said I would protect you,” the statement was nothing more than a whisper. “And I will. But you have to protect me too, okay?” 

He could feel the blood running down his arm, could feel it falling off his finger. Was it the blood or the lack of air that made him feel like he was floating away? He couldn’t be sure. But it was something more fragile than weightlessness, what he felt. It was like being peeled away from yourself, like the little bit of paper on the back of a child’s sticker being pulled away forever. 

He couldn’t let it happen, he knew. 

He closed his eyes and went limp. Last time, he had woken up on the floor. This time, he fell heavily to the floor, his blood seeping into his clothes, and the pressure on his neck was gone. He stayed still for a moment, trying to catch his breath, trying to breathe past the agony that came searing through the gash in his arm now that he wasn’t struggling to breathe. 

And then he smelled gas. 

He exhaled a relieved laugh, and opened his eyes. Daniel was still kneeling, but the hand holding the knife was slowly lowering, Daniel’s arm shaking against some invisible resistance. Johnny watched, still trying to get his breath back, as Daniel peeled his own fingers off the blade and let it fall, with a clatter, to the floor. 

“Fuck,” he heard him say, and just the sound of his voice pulled him up, breath and blood loss momentarily forgotten. “Johnny.” 

“We’ve gotta go,” he said, his voice broken. “You have to –”

But the room was tilting again, and he could barely breathe – the relief and the fear felt like they were wringing his lungs dry, and he saw Daniel struggle to his feet before he fell back onto the floor and blacked out. 

***

Daniel could feel a stinging pain in his neck – a quick press of his fingers told him the point of the blade had gone in, just enough that a tendril of blood was starting to snake down his chest. It didn’t matter – Johnny mattered, and he was unconscious on the floor, his arm bleeding. 

How had he even gotten down here? He remembered Johnny getting up to answer the door for Bobby, remembered him glancing back at Daniel and giving him a supportive smile before stepping outside to speak with Bobby privately, and then nothing. He looked down – he was standing in the middle of a symbol that he knew, somehow, to mean sacrifice. He used his boot to smudge a few of the lines, rendering it unreadable, and stumbled out of it. 

He kicked the knife, the one that must have cut him. He couldn’t see it – the candles were starting to go out, and more than the dust and the mildew, he could smell gasoline. 

_We’ve gotta go,_ Johnny had said. 

He stumbled forward – his legs felt like they’d been cramped in that position for a long time, and fell to his knees next to Johnny. He fumbled for his neck – for a pulse – and collapsed in relief when he felt the heartbeat thundering under his fingers. He allowed himself only a second, his forehead resting on Johnny’s chest, before he straightened back up, gently shaking Johnny, trying to bring him back to consciousness. 

“Come on, Johnny,” he muttered. “I can’t carry you up those stairs by myself.” 

But he seemed determined to remain unconscious. Daniel got to his feet, trying to figure out how he was going to get Johnny up, how he was going to carry him, or pull him up the stairs, because a moment before he could smell gas, and now he was sure what he was smelling was fire. 

“Johnny?” a voice from the top of the stairs brought an even stronger smell of smoke, and Daniel looked up in time to see Bobby, or who must be Bobby, coming down the stairs. His shirt had been pulled over his nose. “What happened?” 

“He’s out cold,” Daniel explained. 

“This house is going up,” Bobby said. “Whatever is in here is going to fight back sooner rather than later.” 

“Help me pick him up,” Daniel demanded. 

Together, they managed to get Johnny off the ground, but it was still nearly impossible to get him up the stairs. Daniel could feel that his body was protesting, that he was weak; whatever had been feeding on him had sapped his strength. 

He barely made it to the top of the stairs before he had to gently put Johnny back on the ground and rest, knowing even as he did that he was putting them in danger by stopping at all. 

“Fuck it, let’s go,” he said, and Bobby nodded, lifting Johnny off the ground again. Daniel could feel something closing around his arms, around his ankles, but Johnny’s weight made the pain, the pressure unimportant. 

_I said I would protect you, and I will. But you’ve gotta protect me too._

The pressure turned to scratches, knife deep pain that drew blood – Daniel could feel it running down his arm, down his ankle down to his bare feet, leaving macabre footprints behind. 

The house was burning – Bobby had lit the entire staircase and kitchen on fire, leaving the front door open for them to escape, but they had taken too long in the basement, too long trying to get Johnny safely out of the room. The flames were closing in on the front door, the smoke so thick Daniel couldn’t even see Bobby anymore, couldn’t see anything but black. 

He was wheezing now, coughing every other breath, his grip on Johnny weakening. 

They weren’t going to make it. 

He hoisted Johnny higher, the blood on his arm snaking down to his hand, making his grip slippery. Bobby, he could hear, was coughing too, his whole body shaking with it. 

They weren’t going to make it. 

Daniel looked down at Johnny, the deep scratches in his throat, the bruise that was starting to fill in color around the area, the blood on his shirt. He had been almost killed in this house, and refused to leave twice now, just to save Daniel.

They _had_ to make it. 

And then the smoke was getting thinner, and Daniel knew they were almost at the door. They were almost free – he greedily inhaled the almost clean air, swallowing back the coughs that would loosen his grip on Johnny. 

And then they were out, stumbling over the front step and onto the lawn. Bobby and Daniel both collapsed into the freezing asphalt, relishing the cold rocks against the heat that radiated from them, wheezing cool air into their burning lungs. 

“We have to get farther from the house,” Bobby said. “Just in case.” 

Daniel nodded – he couldn’t speak, he was too busy breathing, and turned to Johnny, who was still bleeding from his arm, though the flow had slowed. He tore a chunk off his shirt, already torn at the bottom for some reason, and tied it around the wound. 

Johnny lurched into consciousness, a pained groan forcing him upright. He looked down at his arm before he looked anywhere else, glaring at the shirt tied around it. 

“What the _fuck_ –”

And then his eyes caught the blaze of the house in front of him, and he looked around, finding first Bobby and then Daniel. 

“You made it,” he said, the words a tumble, all in one breath, and Daniel almost laughed – a hysterical, painful thing, and took his hand. 

“I protected you,” he said. “Like you protected me.” 

***

 _Two months later_

Daniel woke to the smell of pancakes. 

Still, he didn’t move – he was too warm for that, and the window by the bed had the curtains pulled, so he could watch the snow swirling against the glass, like cotton closing him in. He wondered if he’d ever get tired of it. 

He wanted the falls, wanted the winters, and Newton, New Jersey, was good at delivering. Sometimes, when his ears were so cold they hurt and when his fingers were stiff from shoveling the driveway, he thought of the warmth of California, and thought he might miss it. 

And then he remembered that warmth didn’t always have to come from the climate. 

“You’re awake.” 

Johnny was leaning against the doorway, in red plaid pajama pants and a deep green sweater. He held two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. He passed one to Daniel, perching himself on the side of the bed. 

“You made pancakes,” Daniel pointed out, sitting up to take the other cup of coffee. Johnny watched him drink it – checking for his reaction, before he responded. 

“I _burned_ pancakes,” he corrected. “And then I threw those out and tried again.” 

Daniel chuckled, scooting closer to the edge of the bed so he could wrap one arm around Johnny’s middle and pull him farther back into the bed, so he was lounging more than sitting. “Are you going to bring them here so we can eat them in bed?” 

Johnny huffed. “I’m not letting you get syrup in the bed,” he said, untangling himself from Daniel’s arms. “Not with your pancake experiments.” 

“The pancake taco is the _breakfast of the future_ ,” Daniel protested, laughing when Johnny tossed him his dark blue sweater, hanging on the edge of the bedpost, so it smacked him in the face. “Remember that when I become famous for creating the next great breakfast.” 

“Okay, LaRusso,” Johnny said with an eyeroll. “Come get breakfast.” 

He found Johnny sitting at the little dining table that Daniel had bought for Johnny’s house two weeks after Charleston House burned down. Johnny’s offer for Daniel to move into his place had been strictly temporary, nothing more than an arrangement that made sense now that Daniel’s house was burned to the ground and all of his belongings with it. 

And then the arrangement just became their norm. 

He paused on the way to his seat to give Johnny a kiss, a mixture of the sweetness from the pancakes Johnny had been eating and the bitterness of Daniel’s coffee. Johnny scooted back from the table and pulled Daniel sideways onto his lap, pulling away to pepper kisses on Daniel’s clothed shoulder, arm, neck, everywhere he could reach. He did this often, Daniel noted, a desperate reminder that Daniel was there, physically present, and that he wasn’t going anywhere. 

They had their own quirks, after Charleston House. Daniel clung to Johnny at night while they slept, anchoring himself to the bed by holding onto Johnny’s torso, by wrapping his legs around Johnny’s. Never did he touch Johnny’s neck. Johnny, on the other hand, was always looking deep into Daniel’s eyes, inspecting the soft amber, making sure that there was nothing else, no one else lingering in them. 

Johnny buried his face in Daniel’s chest, his arms tight around his ribs, his blond hair mussed. Daniel wrapped one arm completely around him, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. 

And then took the opportunity to spear a piece of his pancakes. 

“You have your own,” Johnny growled against Daniel’s sweater. “Thief.” 

Daniel gave him another kiss on the mouth, his own lips sticky with syrup. “You like it.” 

Johnny gave him a smile and didn’t answer.


End file.
